Several news sites have highlighted this as an example of what happens when social media goes wrong and as a valuable lesson on the ways of the Internet. But, this wasn’t just a Twitter fail and public relations nightmare. What the #myNYPD fiasco shows goes beyond the snarkiness that often occurs on social media. It highlights the deep, real issues that some communities have with the NYPD’s policing tactics such as stop and frisk or the incidents of unarmed minority men being shot and killed by police.

It was another instance of dark levity for Twitter, a brief gotcha moment for users who have not forgotten about the police department's transgressions that have cultivated a deep sense of mistrust among many minorities: the shootings of Amadou Diallo and Sean Bell, stop-and-frisk, the treatment of Occupy Wall Street protesters, the program that was, until recently, spying on Muslim students and mosques, or the two cops who were fired after being tried for raping a woman in her apartment.

While this could be seen as a sort of online poetic justice, the NYPD appears to be taking the #myNYPD blow up in stride. According to The Wall Street Journal, the NYPD released a statement Tuesday, saying the campaign was an effort at “open dialogue.”

"The NYPD is creating new ways to communicate effectively with the community," [Deputy Chief Kim Royster ]said. "Twitter provides an open forum for an uncensored exchange and this is an open dialogue good for our city."

Update:

The head of the NYPD, Commissioner William Bratton, said today that he was caught off guard by the harsh response to #myNYPD, but has no plans to quit social media, the Associated Press reports.